Machine type communication (MTC), also called machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, is of interest to mobile network operators, equipment vendors, MTC specialist companies, and research bodies. M2M communications enable M2M components to be interconnected, networked, and controlled remotely with low-cost scalable and reliable technologies. Given the wide array of possibilities of MTC applications and devices, it is expected that there can be trillions of M2M communications with small data to transfer. Such M2M communications could be carried over mobile networks, in which case the role of the mobile network is largely confined to serve as a transport network.
A user equipment device (or simply, UE) used as an MTC device for MTC communications in MTC applications (or simply, MTC) has characteristics such as being nomadically (re-)deployed, having low mobility while deployed, proving low priority communications, and infrequently sending small amount of mobile originated (MO) or mobile terminated (MT) data. For example, a smart meter for utility metering applications is a type of UE used as an MTC device (referred to generally as a UE).